


Ex Gratia

by Liquid_Lyrium



Series: Nemo dat quod non habet [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Footnotes, Historical References, Holding Hands, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Intimacy, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Making an Effort (Good Omens), No Sex, Other, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Canon, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 00:57:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium
Summary: Aziraphale's sojourn into Hell is not like the Greek tragedies. (But it is also exactly like that.) Like Orpheus, he cannot stop looking back. Over the span of six thousand years, and what he owes and what he wants. Diogenes once searched fruitlessly for a(n honest) man, but they are not human. The future is indefinite and unknowable. Ineffable.Perhaps it can be wonderful too.





	Ex Gratia

**Author's Note:**

> _Ex gratia - out of grace. A gift made without any obligation on the part of the giver or any return from the receiver._
> 
> The B-Side to _Vior Dire_, plus a little extra! Because tender hand kisses. (There's no sex, but I rated this mature to be on the safe side of things since they do some more intense making out etc.) No beta this time. I had to pour this onto the page. I hope it's a good companion piece. I think I finally started to figure out what makes Aziraphale tick. Hopefully.
> 
> Content warning: there's a reference to a dark period for Crowley in the past which is where the alcohol abuse is mentioned but it is brief

The angel rests his fingertips on the glass. The windowpane of the anonymous (Dolce and Gabanna who?) designer boutique practically a gateway to Hell. He’s heard that Hell is other people, something in your head, something you carry around inside you. He wonders, now, if Crowley can ever truly leave it. Can either of them? It was a broken down basement in the end, but it’s so much worse and so much more. He's drunk, but perhaps not as drunk as he should be to discuss these things.

They don’t _ talk _ about real things, unless they’re drunk.[1] Never while sober. Only in flashes when they’re clear-headed. Fleeting and tantalizing hints. Conversations that unfold in agonizing fragments over the centuries.

Because it’s always been safer to push Crowley away and deal the harm himself, than admit anything out loud. Aziraphale suppresses a shudder[2] and he’s tempted to miracle away the mannequin as he recalls the bath. The holy water the only pristine thing in Hell. His stomach churns at the thought of Crowley being shoved in and sublimating away like Usher. It almost makes up for centuries of cruelty.

_ I don’t know him. He’s not my friend. We’ve never met each other before. You are Fallen. Out of the question. You go too fast for me. You are a demon. We’re hereditary enemies. (May you be Forgiven.) You were an angel once. Heaven does not have blood on its hands. I am a great deal Holier-Than-Thou. You can’t leave. There isn’t anywhere to go. We’re not friends. I don’t even like you. We’re on Opposite Sides. There is no Our Side. It’s over. You’re being ridiculous. (I Forgive you.) _

But things are different now, aren’t they? (Aren’t they?) But isn’t Aziraphale still the same person—same being he’s always been? He’s scared he can’t be what Crowley needs. He thought he knew, but now? After inhabiting the demon’s body? Seeing just a sliver into Crowley’s existence? How could Aziraphale have possibly thought that the demon could use _ more _ pain?

He didn’t Fall, but Hell is not so easy to shake off. Neither is Heaven.

And perhaps Crowley saw something while wearing his form as well, because the demon just takes his hand and they’re in front of the entrance to the demon’s flat.

_Oh, I should have asked Will to write sonnets about these hands. _ Elegant and perfect. So different from the hands of a principality.[3] He squeezes gently, pulled back to Earth once more.

“Got to take care of the plants,” Crowley mumbles the words, as though he’s embarrassed that he brought Aziraphale here. _ That won’t do. _

“It’s nice to get out of the bookshop,” he gives Crowley’s hand another squeeze, but then as they step into the lift he finds himself clutching the hand in his like an anchor. He can’t help the way he clings to the demon.

There are sword-worn calluses hiding beneath the softness of Aziraphale’s hand that the principality can still feel. The truth of him remains no matter how many millennia it's been since he started treating his hands (trying to erase his true purpose), but _ oh_, Crowley's hands are so perfect. So effortlessly perfect and accepting. 

Strong enough to withstand hellfire and the heat of stars, yet gentle enough to cradle and shape. They shelter and spin, they hold fast and stop time. The hands of an artist, a musician, a sculptor, a gardener. Hands that were always meant to nurture. Not made for Justice or the sword.

But Aziraphale also knows those delicate things are hollow. Not like bird bones,[4] but those fingers feel hollow all the same, it was such a curious ache when he was inside Crowley's skin. (One of many.) Aziraphale wasn’t meant to know such a secret, but now he does and he feels _ ruined _ with it. There’s nowhere to house this _ Knowledge _ inside himself. He wasn’t made to hold such things. The angel is not a library, no matter how much he loves them. (He is an armory.)

He follows the demon easily down the hallway. Showing a trust he was always told never to extend. The Other Side could never be trusted. (Despite centuries of evidence otherwise.) He feels a little more sure that this is real, that this isn’t some strange torture of Hell and he loosens his vise-like grip of the demon’s hand.

“I forgot to ask,” the angel stares at their entwined fingers in wonder, “how was my trial?”

“Er-” At any other time, Aziraphale would relish leaving Crowley at a loss for words. (Of course. Stupid question.)[5]

The disappointment is distant and familiar. Like the impact of a meteorite falling somewhere in the Siberian taiga disturbing the atoms on the surface of his cocoa. He tries to flash Crowley a smile. (Isn’t this what you always do? Laugh off the things we can’t say sober?) “I was joking. Of course I know there wasn’t a trial.”

Crowley doesn’t laugh.

Aziraphale shifts. He feels _ seen_. _ Is this how you’ve felt too? _ He’s tempted (lowercase “t”) to spread his wings and fly off to the bookshop. Or the top of a very high mountain. Or the moon.

"Angel-"

“It makes sense, really.” (It’s a cheap joke, but what else do they have left after sixty centuries?) “I mean, your lot did invent the profession of lawyering, after all.” He tries one more time to summon his perfectly angelic, contented smile to reassure Crowley.

Maybe it works. The old serpent tugs him just a little closer. Aziraphale isn’t certain. He’s never gotten the hang of reassurance. (“Be not afraid, and all that!”) “Yeah, but it was your side who invented the idea of prosecution.”

Crowley has always been better at consolation than Aziraphale. (Even as a demon, he’s so much better at the heavenly pursuits that _ matter _ than the principality. Oh he must have been _ Someone _ a long time ago.) Aziraphale laughs; his heart feeling lighter, trading familiar barbs about fussy archangels, but it seems he won’t be let off so easily.

They sit together on the sofa, and Aziraphale feels heady and strangely breathless as their knees touch. (Stupid.) Their knees have brushed each other’s hundreds-_ thousands _ of times before now. Incidental touches under shared tables that started as far back as Rome. And Crowley still has him tethered by one perfect hand, five perfect fingers. Holding him back from the edge of a Fall, as he always has.

“Tell me about the trial.” It isn’t an ask. There’s no circling round to the point. No cajoling, no eroding Aziraphale’s carefully constructed walls, no insidious questions that the angel finds are too right and too pointed and too lingering when the screams of the forsaken are swallowed by rain. It’s a quiet declaration at a bus stop. (_We’re on our own side._)

“It wasn’t fair,” the words leave his mouth before he can think of a more intelligent way to summarize the whole affair.

Crowley smiles, like Aziraphale has said something utterly charming instead of ghastly. It’s a besotted look that belongs in a different conversation entirely. Not this one. (Any conversation but this.) “Course not.”

Aziraphale is consumed by fury, flames overpowering and searing away the butterflies conjured into existence by that look. “Well it _ wasn’t!_” 

“I suspect that was the point.” There’s a momentary lull to his anger as Crowley lets go of his hand. For a moment he’s dizzy, disoriented, but then Crowley’s hand is resting on his knee. And that _ is _ new. Entirely.

“It was awful, you had no defense! They let me get a few words in edgeways, but mostly it was listening to all the good... bad…” Heaven help him,”-All the things you’d done they didn’t like. It was claustrophobic, dark, and gracious that fellow Hastur has an odor about him. And Lord Beelzebub’s… aura rather makes one feel… itchy.” He can still hear Usher’s screams and Hastur’s throat-scalded voice. _ Wrong place. Wrong Time. _ He wants to tear off his skin and discorporate. To have a form that has never descended into Hell so he doesn’t have to remember how it _ feels _.

The demon’s thumb runs along the curve of his knee, and it pulls him back towards Earth. “They made you listen to Hastur whinge about me for hours on end? Better you than me.” The serpent shakes his head, a languid sneer resting on his lips, “I’d have been broken in minutes by that torture. Probably beg them to carry out-” Aziraphale is crushing Crowley’s wrist with enough pressure to turn coal into diamonds before he knows what his hand is doing. Divine wrath[6] spills off of his tongue.

** _“Do not.”_ **

Crowley looks like he’s about to protest. Throw more words at the problem—but then he yields. “Right… sorry.”

Aziraphale uncurls his fingers, and brushes his fingertips along the demon’s wrist. There isn’t so much as a bruise, but he’s ashamed, regardless.

“Please… I can’t bear to hear you say such careless things about yourself.” There’s such a long silence Aziraphale wonders if he’s embarrassed Crowley. (Again?) Embarrassed them both. _ Is this too honest? Do we need to be more drunk before I can say these things? _

Crowley finally breaks the silence, interrupting the angel’s private agony, “Anything about you and me come up at trial?”

“Sorry?” He’s thrown by the sudden change in subject.

“Our-” the way Crowley’s teeth drag across his lips is practically _ obscene_, “-fraternization?”

“Oh.” He can feel heat manifest in his corporation’s cheeks. “No. Not directly, anyway. Some miracles you performed were mentioned, but not nearly as many as you would expect.” He was honestly quite shocked at how little his name appeared in the proceedings, but then he supposes that it would be considered… admirable that Crowley had tried to corrupt him. (And therefore not worthy of mention.)

“Hm. Our Arrangement probably never occurred to them. No imagination whatsoever.” 

“It was a charade… but you did have a trial. And a verdict given by your peers.” There’s an ugly mote of jealousy stuck in his chest. Unangelic and real. He doesn’t want it, but it stays.

A quiet laugh. Crowley finds far too much amusement in this for Aziraphale’s taste. “A verdict decided before it started, but yes. You can’t say I didn’t have a trial.” The serpent shifts and Aziraphale somehow manages to keep breathing steadily as he feels their ankles touch beneath their trouser hems.

“I suppose if you squint hard enough a mob can pass for a jury,” the angel stares down at his lap. At his empty, useless hands. He shouldn’t be covetous. He was _ there_. He saw it for what it was. (A sham.)

“Why did you ask me about a trial if you knew there wasn’t one? You’re not in the habit of asking questions you already know the answer to.”

The angel can’t help but scoff. “Please. We’re over six thousand years old, that’s all we do. Besides... Those are the only safe sort of questions an angel can ask. Isn’t that what you’d say?”

Crowley deviates from the script again, without wiles. Nothing to thwart. “C’mon, angel.”

Aziraphale drops his eyes to his knees, to Crowley’s palm still cupping over the cartilage and ligaments there. It feels like… a choice. (Hadn’t he said choices were for humans?) They can continue as they were—not saying anything for over sixty centuries, or they can try this thing called honesty.

It’s daunting.

He’s the angel. He’s supposed to comfort others, not burden them with _ thoughts _ he shouldn’t have. (He’s supposed to be _ perfect._) And shouldn’t he have _ known _ what they thought of him Upstairs after all the stunts and _ lying _ he’s pulled this past week, nevermind the last eleven years, nevermind the last six thousand? (Of course he knew.)

Aziraphale once thought he had been issued without bravery, since he did not love battle, but in the days leading to the End-Of-All-Things-Except-Not-Really-This-Time he was surprised to discover a measure of it existed within him all along. He falls back on it now, like a blade, and has faith.

“I suppose I had just hoped otherwise, really.” The words taste like Malbec turned to vinegar on his tongue.

Aziraphale can feel the atoms in the air thrum in excitement as Crowley shrinks (but does not eliminate) the space between his hand and the angel’s cheek. “Hope? That’s a four letter word, angel, and a cruel one at that.”

Aziraphale smiles at Crowley because, if he doesn’t, he’ll weep.[7] “My nature, I suppose. Wanting to think the best of them.” It _hurts_, soul-deep, knowing that they never did the same.

“I tried to do that for you,” Crowley says the words like a confession, his fingertips finally touching Aziraphale’s jaw. The angel closes his eyes, and it feels like there’s a tender caress brushing against the heart-shaped mass inside his chest. “Tried to give them your Grace, even though I didn’t think they deserved it at all.”

“Oh Crowley, did you?” Aziraphale shivers as that gentle touch turns into a suffusion, a baptismal, an _ ocean _ of love. (How could he not recognize even the fleeting glimpses of Crowley’s love before?) _ My cup runneth over_. 

“Course. I mean, I breathed fire at them a little when they failed to pass the test.”

That feeling of love is intoxicating, and Aziraphale laughs, pressing his forehead to the demon’s. A balm he didn’t know he _ needed_. One he’s denied himself for so long. Somewhere far below, he feels the grip around his knee tighten.

"Thank you," he’s breathless, the vibration of sound between their mouths so scant now.

"It's not like I had a choice," Azirphale feels and hears the way Crowley’s teeth worry his lip before he even opens his eyes.

"Oh but you did, my dear boy." He returns the touch, cupping the demon’s cheek with as much care he can muster. “All that hellfire, and you snuck Upstairs with Heaven none the wiser? You had choices.” Whether it was borrowed Grace or not, Crowley had given it of his own will. Aziraphale had not even asked it of him. Hadn’t thought to.

There’s the barest motion of the demon’s head (averting his eyes?) the barest tightening to the muscles in his face. “They’d have known-”

Aziraphale intends to put a stop to that nonsense before it has a chance to take root. “Crowley, you could have killed all the archangels and probably a good portion of the Heavenly Host-”

“Heavenly Host wasn’t there.” Crowley’s propensity for self-sabotage rears its head with fangs bared.

“-But you didn’t,” Aziraphale presses on, taken aback by the realization of how awful and lonely it must have been for Crowley in Heaven. (_Did they really mean to throw me out like an incriminating piece of junk mail? Empty the dustbin when no one was looking?_) It hurts, but they’ve dealt each other far worse blows over the millennia.

Were it not for their proximity, the angel got the sense that Crowley might try to sulk. “Probably should have. Would’ve been easier. Wish I'd thought of it. That's what I get for inventing hindsight-"

That background radiation of love pushes the angel to barrel forward and interrupt, “But Crowley, you _ didn’t. _ That’s the whole _ point. _ It didn’t even _ occur _ to you! You’re a demon and…” Aziraphale is suddenly struck with the right words to say, a smile spreading across his face. It’s a realization far too late, but Crowley still deserves to hear it, “And that’s not a bad thing to be.”

He tries to extend the depth of his love to Crowley, even though he knows its something the demon lost in the Fall. He would extend some of his Grace as well, only Crowley already looks a little green around the gills, so to speak. _ Oh dear. _

“...What?”

The tiniest part of him fears he’s done the wrong thing.[8] He tries again, softer, “My dear, you had every right… every reason to want to hurt those Upstairs but you didn’t… for my sake.”

Aziraphale wonders what is happening behind those lenses, because the rest of Crowley’s face ripples with all sorts of strange contortions. _ Have I hurt you again? That’s not what I wanted. _ He can feel the unsteady hitching of Crowley’s breath along his cheek.

“Yeah, well for the record I don’t give a toss about anyone Downstairs so don’t go expecting me to fall all over myself for you leaving them alone.”

"We are different—and that's _wonderful._ And I'm sorry it took me so long to see that design of the universe, but Crowley… I love you," Aziraphale breathes out, and maybe honesty isn’t so bad because he suddenly feels like Atlas being allowed to set down the sky after six thousand years.

"You're a fucking angel. You love everything." It breaks his heart the way Crowley pulls in around himself. Coiling tight to protect everything vulnerable.

_ It’s my fault. _

"Oh darling boy," he leans forward and presses a kiss below one of those dark lenses. A show of good faith. Perhaps he can transmit the depth of his love through touch? Would Crowley be able to sense it then? "I know I have not been worthy of you, but please, I love you. Have loved you for so long. Over two thousand years at least, probably more." _ Certainly more._

Crowley struggles in his corporation, the chest shuddering and trembling until he finally speaks again, sounding like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. "You might have said something.[9]"

"I was scared,” Aziraphale hates his own cowardice, but he will be brave for Crowley. He will march through this for the demon. He owes him that. “To Fall, to be taken from Earth, but most of all I feared for you. I couldn't let anything happen to you." The angel rests their brows together, unable to bear the thought of being parted. Not when he has witnessed irrevocable proof of what _ could _ have happened to Crowley. “Sometimes it was easier to convince myself that I was afraid you did not return my affections, but I never really believed that. I tried, but it never made anything easier.” He’s never had Crowley’s gift for imagination. He’s acquired it through association, but it’s a pale imitation.

“‘Easier?’” There’s a charge in the air that smells like matchboxes. “Suppose it would be hard, loving a demon,” for a moment Aziraphale fears that he’s done it again, said something unintentionally harmful. His tongue a blade instead of a bandage, but Crowley doesn’t push him away. Doesn’t leave him standing alone at the third alternative rendezvous.

“Oh my dear, you were never the problem. Never you,” he runs his thumb along Crowley’s cheek. _ Can you feel it? Can I press all of my love into your bones so you’re never left feeling empty? _

“And you _ really _ love me?” It breaks Aziraphale’s heart that Crowley can’t _ feel _ the love he’s so desperately trying to transmit. It doesn’t stop him from trying. Will never stop him from trying.

Cautiously, Aziraphale brushes his lips against the demon’s chin. The briefest, feather-light touch, “I can say it as many times as you need. I can spend the rest of eternity doing that, if you like.”

"As a demon and not… not as an ex-angel?" Aziraphale cannot hold Crowley’s skepticism against him. It’s part of him, and part of what he loves about the other. (And it’s justified.)

"Only insofar as being an angel was part of your history. I love you Crowley. All of you, as you are." There is much to atone for, Aziraphale knows, but maybe there’s a way to do it. He wants to try. He can see the gears turning over in Crowley’s head, he wishes that he could see the demon’s eyes too. He reaches out and places a hand on Crowley’s thigh, still trying to pour all the love in his blessed, angelic form into the other being.

“Hngk.”

“Too fast?” _ Did that work? _Aziraphale pulls his hand away instantly, but the demon lets out a peculiar whine that leaves the angel feeling like his insides are being drawn in all directions, held taut by fishing wire.

Pain explodes at his knee as Crowley tries to clutch _ through_ his material form, but Aziraphale just sets his jaw, heart nearly rent to shreds. He watches the demon’s jaw move once, twice, three times without sound, but then-

“...Kiss me?” It’s the most beautiful thing Aziraphale has ever heard. More beautiful than the Divine Choir. More beautiful than Sondheim.

He’s beaming, and he knows it, can’t stop it. He takes the briefest, most indulgent moment to bathe in the waves of love he can still feel radiating from Crowley. It’s tantalizing and _ familiar_, and he wants to spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out what it reminds him of. “Of course but… would you be willing to remove your glasses?”

There’s a pause, and Aziraphale doesn’t know anything about computers or modern technology, but he’s pretty sure that Crowley’s brain has short-circuited and he can see the steam rising off those circuits. And Crowley is silent long enough that Aziraphale starts to fret and think that maybe the request was a mistake.

“Crowley? You don’t have to if you don’t want to, I just-” But Crowley surprises him yet again, with yet another gift.

“Need help.”

“Of course, my dear boy,” Aziraphale reaches between them and gently takes the glasses by the stems and lifts them away and, _yes._ _Ah. There you are. Beautiful._

It’s exhilarating to see Crowley so bare. Eyes blazing like the suns he made so long ago. Even without Crowley looking directly at him, it’s gorgeous.

“Still with me?” He doesn’t press Crowley to meet his eyes, but when he does it’s arresting. Aziraphale has to turn off the need for oxygen in his lungs. (Mortals get so _ testy _ when they realize you don’t breathe, so it’s usually easier to just… keep up the habit.)

“Yeah. Kiss me,” it’s a whisper, not a hiss. (A prayer, not a plea.) And underneath that love, Aziraphale feels a ripple of hurt and fear. Like Crowley is about to let him touch an open wound.

Wounds like this have never been one of Aziraphale’s strengths. Oh he can do physical ailments, but he has never been good with spiritual matters or… matters of the heart. He is a medic, not a healer. He can fix broken bones, festering lacerations, sword gashes, and battle scars, but he is a principality through and through whenever he tries to reach deeper. And he knows he has hurt Crowley for it. For trying to be something he is not, but so desperately wants to _ be_. (_Afraid I’ve rather made a mess of things._)

That fear underneath the love gives the angel pause for only a moment, because there is nothing he’d rather do than give Crowley everything he wants. Aziraphale closes the distance and he finally, _ finally _ kisses Crowley. After eighty years, two thousand years, six thousand long years of waiting. (More.)

It’s like the Earth has fallen away from beneath his feet. There’s nothing but the two of them. _ Oh. _

_ Haven't I been here before? _

While Azirphale’s imagination might not be up to snuff when compared to Crowley’s, he’s not sure even the demon could’ve imagined that it would feel like _ this._ It feels like laying down arms. Sunlight soaking a heather-covered hill in the Highlands. Flower crowns, open glances, stolen touches, and yards and yards of tartan cloth. Crowley is so soft, so yielding, so utterly pliant and beautiful it’s _ devastating._ There’s a gentle whimper and Aziraphale does his best to cushion the blow. To cradle Crowley in his hands.

Sitting here, kissing Crowley, Aziraphale finally feels like he’s _ for_ this. Like he’s meant to have something soft. To nurture, to heal. And maybe it’s selfish seeing as how many wounds he must have placed on Crowley’s heart in the first place but he will spend the rest of eternity trying to mend them. (To make them whole.)

It’s like being who he was always meant to be, not who he was _ made_ to be.

Crowley pulls back, kissing Aziraphale’s lip before he can protest their separation. “Don’t… Don’t ever say you’re not worthy, angel.”

The angel gasps—or he tries to, but Crowley is trying to discorporate him with the force of his kissing. A moment later Aziraphale feels those perfect hands half-pushing, half-guiding him down, and Crowley all but wraps himself around the angel. He hears the _ thunk-thunk_ of snakeskin boots falling onto concrete floor.

“Don’t lump me in with them.” A solar flare sears against his neck where Crowley kisses him. “You’re everything, the best thing in all bloody Creation,” his demon kisses his chin, and Aziraphale clings to him with everything he’s worth.[10]

He almost protests as Crowley shifts in his grasp, until the jacket is tossed to one side. “You don’t need them.” He can taste Crowley’s anger in his next, fierce kiss. (The faintest hint of brimstone, unexpected frost in early summer, and… yes the alkaline taste of leaf spots.)

Aziraphale reaches up and cups Crowley’s cheek, panting an embarrassing amount. “I’m sorry.” 

Crowley sounds thrown by the apology. “What for?”

Aziraphale has to look away. “That you finally… That you had to go back and have them… treat you like that.” It’s as close as he can get to the truth.

Aziraphale has always known—well not always, but earlier than he’d like to admit—that he and Crowley have been on the same side. Only he didn’t know what that meant. (He’s still not sure he knows what the truly means.) And for a long time… Well, Crowley has never truly been all that beholden to Hell and Aziraphale could never imagine intentionally Falling. His imagination had not been robust enough to envision a third side, just the two of them. In his mind, in order for them to _ be_ on the same side, it meant Crowley returning to Heaven and coming… _ home_. Where _ She_ would (_finally_) forgive him after all this time. He meets Crowley’s gaze, wondering if he’ll understand even a part of it.

_ I’m sorry that you finally got to go back and they treated you so poorly because they thought you were _ me._ They should have been glad to see you again. They should have welcomed you home_. _ I’m sorry I made you go back there, to that. _ Aziraphale wonders now, though, if Heaven _ ever_ felt like somewhere he belonged. (Maybe before the war?) 

Crowley laughs, the sound of it bright and disarming. “Oh, angel. That isn’t home anymore. I’m not interested in going back.” The demon bites his lip suddenly, as if censoring himself. Like he realizes he’s said too much. _(I know. I know you never really wanted to go back. That was something I wanted because it would have been easier. I’ve always known, my love.)_

Aziraphale reaches up to tangle his fingers against the starsmith’s. “Then let’s not go back, ever again.”

There’s a stillness, and then Aziraphale feels it. _ Love_. Enough love that it feels like the arms of a galaxy spanning across lightyears.

“I’ve got home right here,” there’s something almost _ mortal_ in the rough hew to Crowley’s throat and it’s so gorgeous Aziraphale wants to hold it in his heart forever. He closes the distance between their lips again, and he can’t quite gasp at the heat that sparks into being there. He wasn’t present when the stars were made, but he can still feel the heat of their furnaces under the sky at night. That’s what it feels like as Crowley kisses him. As he kisses Crowley. (As they kiss.)

Crowley holds him like he intends to reshape him, to remake him into something worthy for the cosmos, and the angel suddenly finds it’s too much. He reaches up and rests a hand on one of Crowley’s wrists.

He turns and presses a kiss against what would be Crowley's lifeline if they weren't immortal beings. "Forgive me," Aziraphale whispers. "I know I've hurt you, over the years," _ I'm meant to be terrible, not tender._

“Shuttup,” the words are pressed rudely against his mouth. Crowley is almost surly as he presses his next words under his chin, “Stop ‘pologizing for old stuff. ‘S not romantic or sexy.” Despite the words, the kisses against his skin feel like absolution.

He presses a kiss to the demon’s forehead. Crowley grumbles low in his throat. (It’s an apology, but one he’ll apparently allow.) “What would you have me say instead?”

“When did you _ know?” _ Crowley asks, sounding more desperate than he probably means to. It sounds like a man willing to change his name at the first hint of disapproval.

The feeling of legs shifting between his and a hand sneaking into his jacket is _ most _ distracting. “When did _ you_ know?”

“I asked you first,” the demon nips at his lips, a sweet admonishment the angel resolves to try the next time Crowley irritates him too much. (He suspects he would be weak in the knees if he were standing.)

“I suppose that’s fair.” Aziraphale reaches down between them pulls the hand at his waist up to his mouth. He turns Crowley’s hand over and brushes his lips over the knuckles there, and then kisses each one in turn. He feels a shiver thrum against him with each press of his lips. “I really have loved you, Crowley, for at least two thousand years,” the words are whispered against a warm, familiar palm. He traces the edge of Crowley's hand, rotating it gently to admire the back of it once more. “But I didn’t know it until… well the church and the bombing and the books, you see. Then everything was so clear I.. I .. couldn’t.. I couldn’t be ignorant anymore I suppose. Like eating the apple. I could never unknow it after that, but I-” He turns Crowley’s hands over again and kisses blessed, blessed fingertips, trying to cut himself off and forestall any statements of regret.

They are too old for that. And besides, they’ve _ spent_ the last six millennia together. Is it really so much to regret? No. No Aziraphale cannot bring himself to regret their friendship.

When he wasn’t paying attention, Crowley slipped him out of his overcoat._ I didn’t feel a miracle? _“But what about you?”

“15th century,” Crowley almost sounds defeated as his answer caresses the angel's neck. Like he shouldn’t know the answer so easily, by the heart he professes not to have.

There’s a swell of warmth and happiness Aziraphale can’t contain. The depth and breadth of Crowley’s love makes sense. “Oh my. When? How?” It’s dizzying that Crowley knew for so long, but the demon is much better at self-reflection by nature. Another thing he isn’t made for but has learned after centuries of toiling alongside humanity. (I caught up eventually.)

He feels the weight of the demon (his lover?) shift on top of him. He feels Crowley’s breath permeate through all the layers of fabric still separating them. “It was after my commendation,” Crowley’s voice is made of velvet and nightmares, “I went to see the _ thing _I’d been given an award for, in case they asked questions and… I was drunk.”

Aziraphale lets this version of events stand. Perhaps they’re even true. Crowley had only told him years later that it had happened in reverse. That he’d taken credit for the Spanish Inquisition just like The Terror.

What is _ not _ true is that Crowley had been drunk in that cantina.

The demon had been dying. Aziraphale doesn’t sleep, but if he did the smell of Crowley’s corporation in that bar would haunt his dreams. So drunk he wasn’t able to lift his head, using demonic miracles to stay just on this side of living and avoiding death by alcohol poisoning a second time. Crowley was in a bad enough way Aziraphale wondered if he had been just a few hours, a few days later… maybe he’d never have found out at all. Just another long gap of years between their meetings.

“I remember,” Aziraphale says, holding Crowley as fiercely as he can without causing harm. He lets one of his sword-shaped hands grasp a snake-shaped hip.

“‘N you just… Took care of me. No other angel would do that. They’d have snicked my head off without a second thought. Not you though,” Crowley tugs at his bowtie, pressing his face against the pulse in Aziraphale’s neck. “Think I was angry, at first. Why _ didn’t_ you just end me there? Miserable and weak in every way? Then I thought: _ ah, he’s smarter than the rest. What a clever bastard, letting me suffer like this. _‘Cept then you took care of me… for months. Then I was confused… Why _ didn’t_ you? I mean, yeah the arrangement and all,” still lowercase in those days, “But I couldn’t leave it alone. I did a lot of thinking. Asked a lot of questions. Then I’m just standing there, minding my own business in Naples, and I suddenly realized you were all I’d thought about for the last two decades. Not paying attention to whatever war I was supposed to be helping coax along,[11]and then I…” Crowley’s jaw tightens, his throat locking tight. “I sort of realized_ huh, that’s a long time to think about one person in’it?_ And all I wanted was to meet you somewhere, _ anywhere_, where there wasn’t any fighting.” There was so much of it in those days. Bloody and brutal.

Aziraphale closes his eyes, and brushes his fingers along Crowley’s temple, shivering as the serpent teases the buttons on his vest, leaving them firmly closed.

Crowley kisses his way up Aziraphale’s neck, teeth capturing the angel’s earlobe without warning, and the principality feels gooseflesh all over his skin. “I was so_ hungry_, angel, hungry for this… hungry for a blessed shred of _ peace_. I only ever got to feel it around you.”

Aziraphale gasps. The core of him shatters like a blade in the hands of a novice smith. His voice breaks too as he gasps out a single word. “Peace?” _ Oh._ There’s something _ dreadfully_ wrong with his vessel. His eyes are burning, he can feel something leaking from his face. He’s never had the parts necessary to produce tears. Angels are supposed to be content. “A-Am I discorporating? What is this?” _Am I being unmade?_

Crowley chuckles softly, the breath of it reassuring puffs against his jawbone. “And people say I’m the dramatic one.”

“You _ are!_” Oh he doesn’t like the way his chest shudders. Why are his lungs being so disobedient!?

Crowly shifts a bit, and Aziraphale looks up at the smirking demon, utterly lost. “I think the Antichrist gave you a present, angel.” Once again Crowley looks _ far_ too amused for the situation at hand.

Aziraphale _ knows _ his expression is unattractive in that moment. “Oh… _ ish!”_ He’d seen people cry before, of course, but no one had told him that it made the eyes _ burn! _ This wouldn’t do at all! They had to _ fix _this! The Antichrist giveth and the Antichrist taketh away, surely?

Crowley laughs, and lays a kiss over a trail of salt on his cheek, “I promise it’s not that revolting angel.” His expression softens and then demon presses a whisper against his jaw, “Hey, why’re you leaking though? Did I do something wrong? Something I said?”

_Oh now who’s the bastard?_ Aziraphale felt his throat constrict and he let out a strangled noise as he tries to answer. The angel closes his streaming eyes and let out a shaky huff of a breath. He angles their lips together again, trying to kiss whatever… _this_ was away.

It doesn't really work. He can still feel saline sliding down his cheeks, but he feels a bit steadier. (If naked.) “I’m not… I didn’t know I gave you peace.”

“_That’s_ what made you upset?” Crowley’s unblinking eyes narrow ever so slightly in confusion. For a brief moment he almost looks hurt.

_Did you see who ended up with my sword!? Because it wasn’t the Horseman of Delightful Afternoon Tea Parties!_ Aziraphale sniffles, nose starting to run and he is ready to miracle away every single fluid inside his wretched corporation. The taste of salt is overpowering on his tongue.

“It’s complicated,” Aziraphale manages to rasp out. “Please kiss me until it becomes less so.”

Aziraphale manages to catch the brief widening of those eyes. The slits seem darker somehow. There’s the slightest shift of the serpent’s lips. Like he's fought against a very quick temptation and lost.

“Fine.” Crowley kisses him again, hot and deep and searing. A promise burned into his lips that the angel can feel. _ This isn’t over. We’ll talk about this later. _Sealed with a kiss.

Aziraphale pulls Crowley's shirt out from his stupidly tight trousers. He slides his hands underneath black cloth, tracing the groove of the demon's spine. He seeks out a freckle at the small of Crowley's back he remembers from the baths in ancient Greece, and the angel wonders if there are more now. It's been so long since he had a glimpse of the demon's unobscured skin. (Mesh, fishnets, and the darkness of seedy bars have kept the mystery alive.)

Crowley whimpers at the touch. A beautiful, broken little sound. Aziraphale realigns their mouths, and presses his tongue forward as he traces a circle around that fondly remembered freckle.

Crowley's moans are sweeter than ever, like this. Sampled directly from his mouth, sliding against his tongue like the perfect _ amuse-bouche. _ The demon slides his body along his, and Aziraphale realizes that they are both making an Effort.

Crowley realizes this at the same time, pulling back with the most (dare he say) pure, delighted smile the angel has ever seen on his face.

"Angel! You're making an Effort!"

"So are you, Crowley. I don't see why you should get so excited about it."

There's something like pride and admiration in Crowley's expression. "It just doesn't seem… necessary for you. Wasn't expecting it." Crowley's always been pleased whenever the angel manages to surprise him. It makes the angel’s insides squirm.[12]

Aziraphale attempts to play it cool, summoning his best imitation of his earlier performance. "You never know when casual nudity is going to come back into style. Ought to be ready."

The beautiful, man-shaped, ineffable being in his arms laughs. Bright like starlight. He's so privileged to hold Crowley like this.

The demon smiles sweetly and kisses Aziraphale's neck again. "Play your cards right and there can be some casual nudity in your immediate future, if you like."

Aziraphale understands the offer perfectly, and it sounds wonderful. Kissing like this, skin to skin with not a stitch between them? Trying to recreate the kind of nudity that hasn't existed since Eden? Since before the apple?_ Oh yes._

"Temptation accomplished," he presses a kiss to the demonic sigil next to Crowley's ear. He curls his fingers around that freckle again and his beloved gives another delicious shudder, burying a boneless moan into the juncture of Aziraphale's neck and shoulder.

Clever hands blindly clutch the first button of his vest. Aziraphale lets his fingertips trace along the expanse of Crowley’s shoulder blades. He can feel the sinuous shift of that spine beneath his palms and the faint release of pressure as his buttons are worked open one by one. Aziraphale drags his hands down, letting just the ridges of his vessel’s fingerprints drag along Crowley’s skin as he pulls his hands away enough to start working at the buttons on the demon’s shirt. And oh the _ noises _ he can draw out of Crowley with just the barest touches are _ divine_. (He can’t help but feel a bit of well-earned pride.)

“Gonna murder me,” the demon finally slurs, and he sounds drunker than they did at the Ritz. Aziraphale is startled at the rather correspondingly pathetic noise he makes as Crowley pushes himself upright. (His pride seems decidedly less-earned.) He can feel hands against his ribs as Crowley clutches the velvet cloth with equal parts fervor and care.

Crowley pauses as he opens Aziraphale’s vest. Those serpentine eyes are _ blinking._ Crowley indulges in the practice perhaps once a week, so it’s unsettling to see it so many times in rapid succession.

“What?” He feels self-conscious for a moment. (Gabriel made his opinion on his vessel quite known.)

“Has your shirt under all that always been blue?”

Aziraphale laughs helplessly, hand coming up to cover his face.

“I thought it was white!” Crowley sounds defensive.

Aziraphale’s giggles end in a snort. “Couldn’t tell behind those spectacles, hm?”

“Shut up,” Crowley says, his cheeks nearly as red as his hair, and he seals their mouths together again. Possibly for good.

**Strongly Worded Notes:**

1 It’s easier to deny what is said under the influence of the Devil’s Drink. Aziraphale forgets he has to answer to someone when he’s drunk. Now that is gone. He answers to himself… and perhaps still to Her. If She’ll have him. (If She _ has _ anybody.) [ return to text ]

2 Aziraphale is very good at suppressing things.  [ return to text ]

3 Aziraphale cannot remember the being who died to give birth to Crowley, but the demon admitted in the hush before their plan was born that he had helped to make and hang the stars, once. He didn’t want to die without seeing them again. [ return to text ]

4 And yet also completely like bird bones. [ return to text ]

5 Aziraphale isn’t sure if it was his sojourn to Hell itself or his earlier occupation of Crowley’s form that led him down the path of self-flagellation at this moment. Perhaps it was simply too much association with the Catholic Church throughout the Middle Ages.  [ return to text ]

6 Is there such a thing as Divine terror? He’s never heard of such a thing before. Did the two of them just invent it? Aziraphale will ponder the question (later) long after this conversation ends. [return to text ]

7 (be not afraid) [ return to text ]

8 Despite assurances from present parties that angels, certainly, cannot do the wrong thing. [[return to text ]

9 Aziraphale hears the "-Asshole" tacked on to the end of that sentence loud and clear. Can taste it in the tonsils of his corporation. [ return to text ]

10 A pillar of salt and some starstuff, once you deducted the flaming sword from his celestial wages.  [ return to text ]

11 It is never advisable to ignore War, even for celestial and/or occult beings. Or, perhaps, it is _ especially _ inadvisable for celestial and/or occult beings to ignore War.  [ return to text ]

12 It hasn’t escaped his notice that it tends to be when he does less than angelic (or at least less than Heavenly) things.  [ return to text ]


End file.
